Today, most consumer and other payment transactions involve the use of a debit card or a credit card. As used herein. The term “payment card”, “card” or “charge card”, includes, inter alia, credit cards as well as debit cards. Unfortunately, one of the problems encountered in using such cards is the inherent security risk one takes when using a payment card to pay a merchant for goods or services received. Oftentimes, the owner's payment card disappears from the owner's view, such as, for example, in a restaurant, when a waiter takes the card to a card reading station and out of sight of the card owner. In such situations, it is not possible to keep a watchful eye on the card while the waiter takes the card to a processing location in the merchant's place of business and processes the card for approval of the user's purchase. During this time, it is possible for an employee or even a casual observer to read or copy the card information, such as the card number, card issuing agency, personal identification number (PIN), etc., and subsequently to make unauthorized purchases using the copied information from the user's card. This is an inherent disadvantage of using charge cards in their present form.
Thus, there is a need to provide a card processing system by which a user is enabled to make purchases using the card without risking losing the card information to an unauthorized party.